


wishing i was braver

by thatsarockfact55



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Amy's bi bi bi, F/F, Fuck Canon, Phil's a Lesbian Folks, this fic is like 3 years too late but you know what. i don't care!!!!, this is that in-between scene between ep2 and ep3 in s1, you know how in canon amy and philip's hookup was probably a total impulse decision?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 07:24:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13118904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsarockfact55/pseuds/thatsarockfact55
Summary: “I reckon it’s going to be weird and awkward and bloody fantastic. What d’you say?”





	wishing i was braver

 

      “Funny how you’re still here.”

      Phil hunches her shoulders and stares into her drink. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      The girl-- rotter-- PDS sufferer-- Phil shakes her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Amy Dyer smirk at her. “Just thought you’d have to be on official business, is all,” she says. “Didn’t peg you for a barfly.”

      Phil sips her cheap, watery beer. The Vicar will give her a raise when she proves herself. When she sorts through moldering parish records and makes sure there are enough tea and biscuits and napkins after services, when she manages the collection tin, when she keeps an accurate record of parish spending, when she reminds the Vicar who they’re going to meet with on any given day-- when Phil has done all of that, when Phil has shown herself to be loyal and good and worth something, she’ll buy a pint that isn’t from pocket change. Her nails pick at the worn, sticky wood of the bar, and she mumbles,  “Yeah? What’d you peg me as?”

      Dyer snorts. It sounds-- Phil swallows her drink-- it sounds too close. Dyer should be over where she’d been with Kieren and everyone else, not here, on a stool right next to Phil, untouched lemonade in hand. If the Vicar found out, Phil would be branded a traitor and fired instantly. She glances at Pearl, who shrugs and goes back to wiping the stray glasses the HVF had left behind. Phil relaxes minutely: Pearl doesn’t care about who says what in the pub as long as she’s paid.

      Dyer says, with no small amount of mirth, “I pegged you for the sort of duffer who tells the teacher that she forgot to tell the class what the assignment was.”

      Phil’s ears redden. “...I only did that once, back in primary.”

      Dyer laughs so hard she coughs. It’s an oddly hollow, slightly rattling sound. “See? I was right, wasn’t I?”

      “Yeah, well,” Phil says. “After that Gary told the whole class that I had a crush on Mrs. Jones, and it spread to practically the whole school by the next day. Didn’t ask about assignments again, did I.”

      Dyer hums in the back of her throat. “Did you?”

      “What?”

      “Did you like Mrs. Jones?”

      Phil listens to Pearl wiping down the booths and tables, whistling along with whatever old Clash song is crackling from the speakers. The rest of the pub is empty. Phil can feel Dyer staring at her. Her skin prickles.

      Phil mutters, “Why’re you here?”

      Dyer laughs lightly. “Why not?”

      Phil takes a tiny sip of her beer. There’s not much left. She wipes her mouth on the dirty napkin anyway. “I didn’t peg you for someone who spends a night at the pub alone.”

      In her periphery, Phil sees Dyer’s smile widen, showing all of her teeth.

      Dyer responds, in that same airy, nearly singsong voice, “I’m not alone. You’re here, dum-dum.”

      “Really? Is that the best you can come up with?”

      Dyer shrugs and raises her eyebrow. “It’s true and you know it.”

      “All I know,” Phil says,“is that I have a meeting with the Vicar tomorrow, and I should get going.”

       Dyer hiccups an exaggerated sob, and one side of Phil’s mouth twitches up, she can’t help it, and that’s when she knows that she has to leave as soon as possible. “Can’t be late,” she adds hastily. “Lots of official business, all that.”

      There’s a short pause, and Phil is just about to get up from her stool when Dyer puts a hand on her shoulder. “Ah c’mon, sod the Vicar. You can have the night off, can’t you-- ?”

      Her hand is cold, so cold, even through Phil’s jacket, and Phil goes stiff. “Don’t.”

      Dyer opens her mouth, closes it, and settles on another eyebrow raise. She drops her hand to her lap, like she’d meant to do it all along. “Sorry, didn’t realize my hands really felt that...well. Dead.”

      Phil shakes her head, pulse in her teeth. She remembers them all, over the years, grabbing at her and tugging her and drooling on her, wanting to taste, wanting to eat-- Dyer had killed, Dyer was a monster-- her hands felt the same as theirs, just as cold, just as terrifyingly alive--

     “Hey,” Dyer says, and her voice is injected with a strain of forced cheer. “Hey, no need to look so down about it. I’m alive now, aren’t I? Right as rain.”

      Phil clenches her jaw. “I should leave.”

      “Look, you ninny--”

      “Stop trying to talk to me, alright? I can’t--” Phil squeezes her eyes shut. “I didn’t join up, you know, with the HVF, but I-- there were times when...when mum was out getting supplies, and I had to keep the house secure, and I’d hear them and they’d reach for me and they wouldn’t stop, not until I-- I had to do something. I had to.”

      Dyer nods, uncharacteristically serious for a moment. She taps her finger against her chin. “I don’t remember much from those times, you know. I get bits and pieces. Sometimes it’s like I led this whole different life-- I wasn’t really a person anymore, was I? But I am now.” Dyer stares right at Phil. “I’m more than I ever was before.”

      Phil glances at her-- pallid, tinted-gray skin, dark hair, clear eyes-- and she remembers learning how to load the only handgun in the house, remembers how her hands had shaken when they had come clawing at the door, remembers her ears ringing afterwards, remembers how difficult the stains were to wash out. She’d always throw up, after cleaning everything, and then she’d count the bullets and reload the handgun, and then she would wash up and get into bed and cry until she fell asleep. Try not to die, clean, throw up, count, reload, wash, bed, cry. Gary and Dean and Jem Walker would get pints after kills, they’d get pats on the back from Bill Macy, they’d walk around Roarton with matching medals pinned to their jackets.

     Phil had used to talk to Kieren, sometimes, about things like this, about feeling like a mechanical alien attempting to be someone normal, but Kieren was gone. After the Rising, Phil had seen him, once, on the way back from picking up late-night fish and chips. He’d had something dark on his ratty clothes, and his decayed face had been slack, his voice low and guttural and scraped from the grave. Phil had hurried off and hadn’t said a word about it to anyone, just like she’d done when Kieren had told her about the mixtape he’d made for Rick.

     During the thick of it, when it seemed like the Rising would never end, Mum would help, she did the best she could, but Phil would still be alone, in the dark, trying not to cry. She always had been a coward, always had been too sensitive. It’s good to have work to do now. Good to keep busy with politics. Keeps her mind clear, keeps her hands occupied with things like paperwork, and pens, and petitions, and not with blood and bullets and snotty, late-night tissues.  She finishes her beer with one last, unsteady sip, and when she looks up, she sees Dyer glaring at her, teeth bared.

    Phil startles and blinks and almost drops her pint.

    Dyer sticks out her tongue. “See? I’m inhumanly human.”

     “I don’t think-- “

     “It’s how it is now, dum-dum. Get used to it. No need for those bloody signs, eh? Full of bullocks, those are.”

     Phil wipes the drops of beer she’d spilled on the counter. Might as well, before she leaves. “If you’ll excuse me--”

     “God,” Dyer laughs, except there’s something hard and bitter underneath it this time, like ice under snowfall. “Alright, leave. I’m done. If nobody in this place can get it through their thick fucking skulls that I’m no longer about to bite their heads off, fine.” She waves her hand. “Go on, shoo.”

     Phil gets up from the bar stool and frowns at her shoes. She should be going. She shouldn’t be here. She splutters instead, “I didn’t mean-- obviously you’re not going to-- you’re different now, alright, but it’s still-- it’s going to take time. ‘S how it is, and the Vicar-- he’s seen some of the worst of it, he’s had to counsel people whose family members came back and tried to-- he gave us hope, when it got like that. He’s giving us hope now, when things are like this--”

    Dyer’s laugh this time is more like a jittery scream. “Hope? You think that’s what he’s giving people? You think that’s what he’s giving Kieren? You think--?”

    “He’s not...he’s old,” Phil mumbles, and her shoulders feel the familiar strain of being tensed for so long. “I don’t agree with all of his policies--”

    “Fuck you-- “

    “I don’t!” Phil stops staring at her shoes, and she looks at Amy Dyer and tries to stop her hands from twitching.“The things he says about-- about it being a disease, about monsters, about driving them out-- it’s not all true, is it?”

    Phil doesn’t mean to make it sound like a question, but Dyer shoots back, “Why? Why isn’t it true?”

    “Because-- “ Her nails dig into her palms. “Because you’re all back, and it’s not--” Phil swallows the lump in her throat. “It’s not like it was before. The Vicar...he needs to get it out of his system, and maybe-- maybe I can talk to him about changing some things, when the time is right.”

    There’s a brief silence. Dyer doesn’t stop glaring. “You sound like a proper politician. Hope the Vicar’s proud of you, hope you--”

    “I’m being serious! The council, the parish council-- who d’you think’s on it? The Vicar, Bill Macy, Pearl, a few others-- they argue, yeah, but what d’you think they agree on? They agree that you shouldn’t be here. I don’t-- look, I don’t know what to think-- but I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

    Dyer’s squints. “What’re you on about?”

    Phil sighs and picks at her sleeve. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m bloody saying. I just-- “ Phil blinks as the realization hits her-- “If I believed everything the council and the Vicar said, I would’ve left when the HVF did, and I’d be home right now, reading over the notes for tomorrow’s meetings.”

    Dyer considers her for one long moment. Pearl is cleaning out the loos now. She’ll be there for God knows how long. Phil’s ears still burn.

    Dyer says, “I s’pose you’re not such a tosser after all.”

    Phil nods. “Yeah, well. This night’s just full of surprises.”

    What a stupid thing to say. What a stupid-- why did she say that? Who says things like that, who talks like that--?

    Dyer giggles. “You want my lemonade?”

    Phil considers it. The ice has melted at this point. Lemonade’s probably tepid. There’s still the Vicar in her ear-- _“They are abominations!”_ \-- and Phil shakes her head. “Alright.”

    “Alright?”

    “Alright.”

    “Alright?”

    Phil rolls her eyes. “Alright!”

    “Are you sure? Are you sure want to accept a beverage from--” Dyer drops her voice to a whisper-- “A nasty rotter?”

    Phil doesn’t know if she can laugh at that. Her voice comes out too formal, too stiff. “Certainly. I’m sure.”

    Dyer still grins, bright and pleased. “I bequeath to you this desecrated, unholy lemonade. The lemons are grown by the devil himself.”

    Phil takes the drink and almost spills it. Her hands are sweaty. “Probably not the devil, he’s too high-up for that. Probably one of his lackeys.”

    “Right. So it’s not as deadly then.”

    “Nah, ‘s not as bad.”

     Dyer laughs long and loud. Her voice rings in Phil’s ears like church bells. Then Dyer snaps her fingers, and Phil doesn’t linger on her laugh any longer. “A toast!” Dyer yells. “We should have a toast!”

     Phil feels one side of her mouth curve up. “What’re we toasting?”

     Dyer grabs Phil’s empty pint glass. “To life, of course!”

     Phil raises the lemonade solemnly. “To life, then.”

     Dyer clinks their glasses together, and puts Phil’s empty pint on the counter.

     Phil sips Dyer’s lemonade.

     “How is it? Cold as the grave?”

      Phil nearly chokes. “No,” she manages, “No, it’s absolutely tepid.”

      “Makes sense. The grave I was in was mostly musty, and, ugh, awfully warm. Like a janitor’s closet during the summer, except with more dirt, you know?” When Phil doesn’t respond-- what could she possibly say to that?-- Dyer asks, unperturbed, “Is the lemonade...astoundingly tepid?”

     Phil brings the glass to her lips to hide her smile. “Wondrously tepid.”

     She sips the shite lemonade, and Dyer’s eyes track the movement. Phil feels her face go warm. Swallows, coughs out, “What is it?”

     Dyer shakes her head. “Oh, it’s just-- you’ve got a bit of satan’s lemonade here.” She points to the left side of her mouth.

     “Oh.”

     Phil ignores the curdling sense of sinking disappointment-- she always does-- and reaches for her crumpled napkin, but then Dyer says, “Hang on dum-dum, I’ve got it.”

     “What? No, no it’s--”

     “Oh, shush.”

      Dyer reaches forward and swipes her own, untouched napkin across Phil’s mouth. “There,” she says triumphantly, and leans back. “The lemonade of the damned can’t contaminate you any longer.”

      It was such a quick motion, over and done with before Phil could blink, but her mouth--Phil bites her lip--it still tingles.

      Dyer’s brightness dims slightly. “What, no thanks? No appreciation?”

      Phil shrugs, trying not to chew at her lip again. “Thank you? For, er, rescuing me.” Dyer raises her eyebrow--she enjoys doing that, doesn’t she--so Phil bows her head slightly, and adds, “Thank you, Sir Dyer, for being my knight in shining armor.”

     Phil says it like she’s addressing the council about a new program the Vicar has planned, her voice hollow and monotone and utterly serious, and she’s about to apologize, but then Dyer laughs again, her whole body shaking. “You’re a bloody riot.”

     Phil rubs the back of her neck. “Sorry. I mean-- most people--they don’t say that, usually.”

     “Didn’t you know? This night’s just full of surprises.”

      Phil smiles, she can’t help it. “Thanks.”

      Dyer smiles back. “You’re quite welcome, princess.”

      Phil snorts. “Princess?”

      “If I’m a knight who rescued you then you’re the princess. Simple.”

      “No, I think-- I’d be one of the peasants, wouldn’t I, I’d die of the plague right off--”

      “Ooh, I’d be a witch!” Dyer gasps: “No! I’d be something better: a zombie witch!”

      Phil grins and ducks her head. “Makes sense, I s’pose.”

      Dyer rests her chin on her hand. “Why’s that?”

      Phil laughs and looks at her and says, “Because you’re bewitching.”

      She’s quite proud of the joke--she’s usually terrible at them, but it’s at least a decent pun, isn’t it, but then-- oh, fuck. Did she really say that? Did she--? Dyer’s going to think-- Jesus Christ--

     Dyer hasn’t said anything back yet.

     Phil turns away-- they were too close anyway--and her face is burning, and she needs to leave. “Sorry. Sorry, I’ll be going, it’s late--”

     “Did you mean it?”

     Phil’s mouth is dry. “I--it was a joke, a stupid--sorry, I have to meet the Vicar tomorrow--”

     Dyer grabs Phil’s hand. “Did you mean it?” Her voice is quiet now, small and delicate and so unexpectedly fragile, like a little bird shaking off its down.

     Phil squeezes her eyes shut. “Stop that.”

     Dyer doesn’t let go. Her voice shakes slightly. “Why? Because I’m a nasty rotter?”

     Phil shakes her head. “No. No, it’s not that, it’s not, just-- stop. Please.”

     Dyer’s grip tightens. “Then what is it?”

     Phil opens her eyes. Dyer is looking right at her, with those clear eyes of hers, and she’s too close, too close, too close-- “Please.”

     She tries to pull her hand away, but Dyer doesn’t let her. “Tell me. Tell me why you’re so bloody afraid of holding my hand.”

     Phil swallows the sourness down her throat. “It’s just-- your hands are bloody freezing, but it’s--” Her breath shudders out of her. “It’s because I want you to.”

     “What? You want--?” Dyer’s eyes widen. “Oh.”

     Phil clenches her jaw. “You-- it’s not--”

     Dyer smiles, small and tucked away and private. “You really think I’m bewitching.”

     Phil ducks her head. “My hand hurts.”

     Dyer loosens her grip until their hands are in a loose hold, and Phil lets herself breathe. Then Dyer raises Phil’s hand slowly, so slowly, and kisses it.

     The worst part, Phil thinks, in some distant part of her roaring brain, is that she hadn’t stopped her. “I--”

     Dyer still doesn’t let go of her hand, not completely. She is looking at Phil wonderingly.   

     No one has looked at Phil that way before.

     Dyer’s thumb brushes over her knuckles, and Phil stills, almost doesn’t hear her when she asks, “Do you--?”

     There’s a clanging noise and the sound of off-key humming: Pearl’s back from the loos.

     Phil rips her hand away just in time for Pearl to look up from her mop and frown at them. “Pub’s closed.”

     “Right!” Dyer almost squeaks, her voice is so high and chirpy. “Right, but Pearl-- it’s Pearl, isn’t it?--’m afraid my friend and I really need to use the loo before we go, don’t we?”

     She kicks Phil’s shin underneath the stool. Phil manages, “Er, um, yes.”

     Pearl throws up her free hand. “Just cleaned the loo, didn’t I?”

     “Exactly! We’re bursting right now-- wouldn’t want us to leak, would you?”

     Pearl sighs. “Fine, take your bloody piss, but if you’re not out here in five I’m kicking you out myself.”

     “We’ll be back in a flash!”

     Before Phil can even think to say, “Thanks, Pearl,” Dyer is dragging her to the loo, hand nearly crushing hers.

     When they reach the loo, Dyer shuts the door behind her and turns to Phil, grinning like a loon. “I have the most brilliant idea--”

     “What’s going on?” Phil asks, and she wrenches her hand away again. “What’re you on about, what--?”

     “Can I kiss you?” Dyer asks, like it’s the simplest and easiest and most obvious question in the world.

     Phil’s whole body tenses. “What the bloody fuck are you talking about?”

     Dyer holds up her hands. “Just-- look, I’m not--”

    “You’re mad, is what you are.”

     Dyer deflates. “If you want to leave, you can leave.” She points to the door. The excitement fades out of her eyes. “Didn’t mean to-- I only thought that you’d--”

     Phil shakes her head. “I didn’t say I wanted to go, let’s just--let’s slow down. What’s your brilliant plan?”

     Dyer shrugs nonchalantly “Don’t know,” she confesses, stepping closer. “Thought I’d try something like this.”

     She is suddenly so close. Phil goes rigid. Dyer takes her hands in hers and rises on her tiptopes until their foreheads are touching. She breathes, “Do you really want to leave?”

     “No,” Phil says, her voice so quiet she can hardly hear herself. “No, I don’t want to leave.”

     “Then what do you want?”

      Phil looks down at her, feels her face warm-- her hands are sweaty by now, and she’s shaking, she knows she is, but she leans down and she kisses Amy Dyer.

      It’s only for a second or two--it really isn’t much of a kiss at all-- and Phil pulls away immediately.

      “That’s it?” Dyer demands, utterly scandalized. “That’s all?”

      Phil shrugs helplessly. “Well-- well what d’you want then?”

      Dyer says, “This,” and she surges forward, and Phil is pushed back against a sink, and it’s not very comfortable, but Phil doesn’t care, she could give two fucks about the dingy sink, because Amy Dyer is kissing her and kissing her and kissing her-- Phil doesn’t know what to do with her hands, just holds her tighter and kisses back--

      The door pounds. Pearl’s voice: “Two minutes!”

      Dyer pulls away, her hands dropping from Phil’s short hair, their foreheads no longer touching, and Phil almost whimpers at the loss of contact. She takes Dyer’s hands in her own. “Don’t go.”

     She’s being desperate. She knows she’s being desperate, but Phil tucks stray strands of hair behind Dyer’s ear, and she says, “Don’t go.”

     Dyer lifts her hand and cups Phil’s cheek. Phil leans into the touch, and Dyer says, “Come home with me.”

     Phil nearly flinches. “What?”

     Dyer presses close again, and she murmurs, “Come home with me.”

     Phil shakes her head--this can’t be real, this isn’t real--Dyer kisses her jaw, and asks, “What’s wrong?”

     A panicked laugh loosens from Phil’s throat. “What d’you think? I can’t just--it’s not--I’ve never--”

    “It’s alright.”

     Phil hisses, “No, no it isn’t! It’s--what if we’re caught? What if you’re caught? What if--?”

     “Phil,” Dyer says, “We’ll be safe.”

     “You don’t--you don’t know Roarton, you don’t understand--”

      Pearl, nearly breaking the door down: “Time’s up!”

      “Be out in a second!” Dyer yells, and she whispers to Phil, “We’ll take a walk?”

      “...Ok,” Phil says, “Ok, we’ll go for a walk.” She kisses Dyer’s cheek--she doesn’t have time for words--and Dyer smiles in an almost bashful way as they leave the loo.

      Dyer salutes Pearl with her free hand. “And we’re off!”

     “G’night, Pearl,” Phil says as she’s led away, and Pearl shakes her head and goes about closing up the pub.

     The night air is crisp and windy, and Phil breathes in and out and looks at the stars. She doesn’t let go of Dyer’s hand.

     They walk in silence for a while. Dyer looks at the stars like she’s seeing them for the first time, and she grins at every little pebble she kicks out of their way. Phil looks at all of the houses and little stores they pass, to see if anyone’s lights are on, to see if anyone’s watching.

    “The moon!” Dyer bursts out, standing utterly still. “Look at the moon!”

     Phil is startled out of her careful search for onlookers, and she looks up. The moon is full and bright and breathtaking.

     Dyer whispers, “It’s beautiful.” Her voice catches. She hastily wipes her eyes and leans against Phil’s shoulder, like it’s easy, like she needs the support.

     Phil says into her hair, “It’s lovely.”

     A few moments later, a scraggly cloud passes over the moon, and they walk on.

     No one’s out and about at this time of night-- the HVF is out in the woods, and everyone still keeps to themselves when it gets dark. Leftover habit from the Rising: it was always best to stay home when the sun went down. Phil still startles at every owl shriek, and she almost lets go of Dyer’s hand when a grocery bag blows across their path: she can’t be too careful, not when she knows that the Vicar has eyes everywhere.

    “So,” Dyer says after the wind whistles past their ears. “About my proposition.”

    Phil stops walking and sits on a freezing bench right next to them. “What about it?”

    Dyer plops down next to her. “What d’you think?”

    “I dunno,” Phil waffles, breath puffing into the air. “I dunno.”

    “What’d you mean before, about the town?” Dyer puts her arm around Phil’s shoulder. “I said we’d be safe, and I meant it.”

    “I know you did, I know, but--” Phil sighs. She looks at the sky. “I didn’t have a crush on Mrs. Jones, back in primary. I fancied Miss Stevens.”

     Dyer chuckles. “Go on.”

    “Who d’you think I told about it? Not mum. Not anyone. The only other person who knew was Kieren Walker.” Phil heaves in a breath: she’s still not used to seeing him around, eyes bright and gentle, saying hello. “He didn’t tell anyone else,” Phil says quietly. “He told me about fancying Rick Macy in Year 9, and I kept it a secret, like he’d asked me to. He’d go to synagogue, sometimes, in another town, and I’d go to church here, but we’d both hear the Vicar, we’d hear the council, and the town, and-- well. We weren’t best mates, but we looked out for each other.” Phil swallows the lump in her throat. “The Vicar would say things, he’d shout and rage and he would get so angry--” Phil still flinches, sometimes, during services. “When Kieren died,” Phil says, and her voice catches. She wipes her eyes. “When he died, the Walkers held a funeral, right after they-- right after they found him. I s’pose no one else in Roarton was really prepared for it. The Vicar was there, and he read his usual passages, but he didn’t care, no one did-- the Macys weren’t there, the council wasn’t--it was just mum and me and a few others. The Vicar said--after the services, he said that Kieren shouldn’t be buried here, with the righteous. No one said anything about it, no one talked about it--it was like he was off at art school.”

    Dyer mutters, voice thick, “Sod them all.”

    Phil nods. “After the funeral, the Walkers sat shiva--they mourned for seven days. Mum would stop by when she could, when she wasn’t busy at work, and I--” Phil’s voice breaks. “I went almost every day. They let me stay for hours, that whole week; I wasn’t family, I wasn’t Jewish, but it didn’t seem like anyone else was going to mourn him, so they let me.”

    Dyer’s voice shakes. “I’m going to fight every single person in this town-- I’m going to burn it--”

    “So,” Phil mumbles, “So I’m on the council because I don’t want to be like--” _I don’t want to be in that cave--_ “I want things to change. But I’m still bloody useless, alright? I haven’t done anything with anyone, not really, and I’m sure-- I’m sure you’re very excited about...being yourself again, and I’m here, so you want to--”

    “Hang on,” Dyer cuts in. “D’you really think I want to shag you just because you’re available? If I really wanted to, I could go with plenty of lads and ladies and everyone else.”

    “But c’mon, Dyer-”

    “Amy.”

    “...Amy. Isn’t it-- aren’t I convenient?”

    Amy sighs. “I s’pose? Yes, sure, in some ways-- but I’m alive again.” She smiles so wide it looks like it hurts. “I’m alive again, and I-- before I died, I didn’t-- for a long time, I couldn’t be with anybody. It’s been a while for me.” She shifts and tilts Phil’s chin so she can’t look away. “I’m new to this. I’m new to this life, and I want to spend the night with you. You’re funny and smart and a great kisser.” She looks at Phil fiercely. “I reckon it’s going to be weird and awkward and bloody fantastic. What d’you say?”

   Phil’s arse is freezing from the bench, so she holds Amy’s hand and leads her off of the bench. “Ok,” she says, teeth chattering. “Ok.” She laughs too high. “Christ, I’m bloody terrified.”

   “That makes two of us!” Amy says in her singsong voice. “Good news is that my place isn’t far from here.”

   “Is that where you were taking me on this walk?”

   “Maybe,” Amy laughs, “If you’d wanted me to.”

    Phil smiles back. “I want you to.”

    “Good.”

    Her house isn’t far from the bench at all; in a few windy minutes, they’re at her front step. Amy stops right before opening the door and grins deviously. “Here it is, the old haunt.”

    Panic buzzes in the back of Phil’s head--is she actually doing this? Is this real? Doesn’t she have a meeting tomorrow--?

    “Phil,” Amy says, and she reaches up and kisses her so softly that Phil sighs. Amy tastes musty and earthy and cold, and it’s not unpleasant, not at all.

    “Phil,” she says gently, “I want you. You’re lovely.”

    The panic doesn’t go away, but Phil reaches for Amy’s hand and kisses it. “Likewise.”

    Amy beams. “Excellent. Let’s get you warmed up then.”

    Phil heads inside, and she only looks back once.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Christmas gift to myself! I might write more, we'll see. Thanks for reading! Title of the fic is from Jasmine Kennedy's "Laura."


End file.
